SECTION C NMR SPECTROMETRY

NCUACS18.3.90/C.1-C.11

SECTION C NMR SPECTROMETRY

The provision of NMR facilities had been recognised as an essential requirement of enzyme research in the SRC's Enzyme Panel report and was a major feature of the OEG's grant application. The considerable capital cost of equipment necessitated particularly careful preliminary enquiries, comparisons and budgeting; R.E. Richards bore the main responsibility for this both as Chairman of OEG and as active participant in NMR research, and the SRC on its side undertook additional vetting of the proposal.

Richards's note 'Magnetic Resonance equipment for the Oxford Enzyme Group' (included at C.1), prepared for the SRC High Field NMR Panel meeting on 4 June 1970, sets out very clearly the considerations weighing on the choice of instrument. Briefly the choice was between a complete instrument to be purchased from the American firm Varian Associates, and a composite deal with Bruker Spectrospin (for the spectrometer) and Oxford Instruments (for the magnet). The second solution was adopted and proved extremely successful. The Oxford group itself undertook much of the development, increasingly powerful magnets were constructed over the years in collaboration with Oxford Instruments, and the work was rewarded materially by various awards and patents, and scientifically by its contribution to the development of whole-body scanning in medicine.

English